Material Culture Minute: Museum Fabrics to Wear

Last year, I mentioned an article from the 1970s that profiled a woman named Jenny Bell Whyte who made modern clothing out of historic coverlets. She established Museum Fabrics to Wear in 1971, and you can learn more about her philosophy and her craft in the article I have since tracked down thanks to an acquaintance. You can download the article from Americana by clicking here. According to her New York Times obituary, Whyte started making clothing from museum-type artifacts upon purchasing textiles the Brooklyn Museum had deaccessioned and sold at auction in 1975.

Many museum pros would blanch at the practice of making clothing from historic artifacts. But you have to admit, the skirts are fun and probably made from better-quality materials than you can find at most shops today.

I'll let you decide whether to keep your coverlets on your bed or your body!

Fashion shot from Jenny Bell Whyte's "Skirts From Coverlets," Americana (September/October 1978)

Cloth-Covered Buttons from the Mast Ship St. George

By guest blogger, Tyler Putman:

When Nicole and I go antiquing, we search for cool old stuff, but, sometimes, objects find us. Regular readers of my (Tyler's) blog might have gathered that I’m particularly interested in, among many other things, historical clothing and buttons. There's something fascinating about these little artifacts and all the things they can tell us about clothing and the people who wore it. Years ago, at the Mansfield, Ohio, Civil War Collectors show, I came upon a small case of eighteenth-century cloth-covered buttons for sale. They had been found, so the attached note said, washed up on a beach in New England after a shipwreck. The price was a little high for me, though, and by the time I made up my mind to go back for them later in the day, some other savvy collector had snapped them up. And so I wrote them off, adding them to the “should have bought that” list that I suspect every collector secretly maintains.

Then, a couple months ago, at an antique show Nicole and I visit annually at the Singerly Fire Hall in Elkton, Maryland, I happened upon another small case of buttons with an eerily familiar provenance:

Cloth-covered buttons with dime for scale. The middle buttons in the top and bottom rows are flipped to show how the fabric is secured on the reverse around the wood cores.

I thought over these buttons. They were great examples of the sort used on men's and some women's clothing in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. You can read a bit about the button "moulds" of forms here and see some in action on a pair of breeches here. I'll confess, I snuck away for a moment and cheated. I did an internet search using Nicole’s phone to make sure that there weren’t a dozen other such button sets floating around on eBay. There weren’t, luckily. So I had to buy them. After all, how often does a second chance like that come around? 

The challenge now was to figure out how much of the story was true. I had talked with the dealer, who told me that she bought them from another dealer who had bought a whole bag from descendants of the Toppan family of Hampton, New Hampshire. Of the two bags of buttons Christopher Toppan supposedly recovered, one had been water damaged but the other intact. And, so the story went, a bag of cloth-covered buttons from the wreck descended in the family right up until recently, when the dealer broke them up into little sets for resale. That, at least, explained how I had come across two different groups of buttons with the same unusual provenance and justified my skepticism about just how many sets there might be.

I initially despaired of finding much online about the shipwreck. There isn't as much digitized source material online for 1725 compared to, say, 1865, because newspapers and other printed material became more common over time.  Moreover, there were hundreds of shipwrecks on the coasts of early America, many of which received little or no printed attention. But when I focused on Christopher Toppan’s name and on Hampton, I got a few hits. Gradually, I started to piece together the story.

As it turns out, the wreck of interest happened not in 1725 but in 1764. That year, Captain Mallard had a string of bad luck. Based on New England newspaper accounts, he sailed from London on the St. George in May, but a few days out of port the ship sprung a leak and put into Portsmouth, England, for repairs. From here, things get hazy.

Early American newspapers often contained a lot of hearsay. They reprinted stories from other papers freely and relied on word-of-mouth to announce the arrival, departure, and sightings of ships. Some accounts said that Mallard had taken command of another ship, the Essex, or that the Essex, under a Captain Hugget, had taken on the St. George's cargo, or that the St. George had later put into Lisbon for more repairs, or that the Essex had arrived in New England, or that the St. George had delivered various parcels to Boston in late November. A ship wrecked near Hampton, New Hampshire, on November 30, but accounts disagreed about whether it was the Essex or the St. George. Here, for instance, is The Boston Evening-Post's version of the events:

My conclusion, after reading the conflicting reports, is that there were in fact two mast ships in the area in the early winter of 1764, the Essex and the St. George. Mast ships carried the straightest, tallest trees back to England to be used for (what else?) masts on British naval vessels, but they also transported other cargo and passengers. In this case, they demonstrate why historians need to use multiple sources in their research. Most of the newspaper accounts I located referred to the wrecked ship as the Essex. But documents digitized by the Lane Memorial Library in Hampton, New Hampshire, including both primary and secondary works, referred to the ship as the St. George. Most importantly, newspaper stories published after the wreck, once things had settled down, all referred to it as the St. George. Just like today, first reports were unreliable and media more distant from the event were more prone to inaccuracies. Among snippets about Indian missionary work and public punishments, The New Hampshire Gazette and Historical Chronicle offered the most succinct and accurate account of the wreck, on December 7, 1764:

What's so important about the actual name of the ship to the story of my buttons? Isn't it enough to know they're from a shipwreck? Initially, I thought that's all I'd get. And if I hadn't checked some other sources and instead concluded the wreck was that of the Essex, I might not have uncovered a more interesting story. When I started looking into Christopher Toppan, however, I was able to make the connection with the 1764 wreck of the St. George, mentioned by Hampton writers including Peter Evans Randall and James W. Tucker.

Christopher Toppan, ca. 1790s, from here.

Intriguingly, it seemed that, along with another prominent Hampton resident, Jonathan Moulton, Christopher Toppan was invested with responsibility for the wreck by the New Hampshire Court of Vice-Admiralty. The two men then purchased salvage rights, much to the consternation of locals who wanted to claim the flotsam for themselves. Writing in 1888, Lucy Ellen Dow described the “wrath of the people” which followed Moulton and Toppan’s purchase and which initiated a riot “of so serious a nature as to necessitate the calling out of the militia.”

I was a bit skeptical about the riot part. Sometimes, local amateur historians rely on folklore, which is notoriously difficult to prove or disprove with historical documents. Low and behold, however, the primary source behind Lucy Dow’s description can be found in her father Joseph Dow’s History of Hampton. The St. George’s cargo, fittings, and even the hull (although this last was aground in the surf) were auctioned on December 27, 1764. A month later, New Hampshire Royal Governor Benning Wentworth did indeed call out a small number of the militia to assist the local sheriff. His letter is worth quoting at length:

“Some ill disposed persons having purloined sundry goods from the Lading of a ship lately stranded on Hampton Beach in this Province while the ship & cargo was under the direction of & in the custody of the admiralty court; & warrants being issued for the apprehending sundry persons supposed to be guilty of the said Breach of the Law, who being apprehended for the same & in custody of the officer [High Sheriff], when as is further suggested, the prisoners were by a number of evil-minded persons in a violent, riotous & tumultuous manner & being disguised, did assault the officer & him beat, wound & evilly entreat & did release the sd prisoners & let them go at large whereby they made their escape & that since the above sd action (which was on the 28^th day of this inst) a great number of the inhabitants of the sd town of Hampton have in a riotous, roysterous & tumultuous manner assembled, & being armed with clubs & staves, have menaced & threatened the officer & bid defiance to all lawful authority, & tho his Majesty's Proclamation agreeably to the law of the Province has been read to them, they still repeat their unlawful assembly to the great Terror of his majesty's good subjects...”

So, it seems, the St. George’s cargo was valuable enough, and its dispersal controversial enough, that it did in fact spur something like a riot in Hampton in the early days of 1765, only a few short months before Bostonians and other colonists took to the streets to protest the Stamp Act.

More recently, a few other probable relics of the St. George have surfaced. In 1962, two young divers raised a cannon, mill stones, and other artifacts from the purported wreck site, and in 1992 another diver found an old anchor believed to be from the ship. To the best of my knowledge, no archaeological work or extended research has been conducted on the wreck site or the St. George's history.

Skip Hird and David Conrad with the possible St. George cannon, 1962. From here.

The possible St. George anchor, early 1990s. From here.

So, are my buttons in fact a relic of the St. George? According to their provenance, they descended in the Toppan family, and Christopher Toppan could certainly have saved them from the wreck’s cargo. The buttons are definitely original and date to the eighteenth or early nineteenth century. The variety of their sizes and colors, their unused condition, and the fact that there are other groups of comparable buttons out there from the family’s original group all suggest that these were buttons meant to be sold. If they were on the St. George, they were part of a merchant's shipment. They were not simply, for example, saved by the Toppan family from a worn-out garment for reuse and later attached to the wreck story. 

I still have some lingering doubts about the buttons' connection to the St. George. They are covered in coarse linens, and it seems unlikely that such buttons would be imported and sold when they were so easy to make. Why would a tailor or seamstress have bought a button when it was so easy to make one in minutes using fabric that matched or coordinated with a garment (like on this coat)? Moreover, of all the things Christopher Toppan and his descendants could have saved and remembered, why a bunch of cheap buttons? 

I’ll probably never know the answers to these questions. But for now, I’m still a believer. I like the story and, anyway, the evidence is inconclusive for either side of the argument. I like thinking that these little buttons are part of a bigger story. And I like that they found me.

Berlin work: craft, kitsch, and fashion

Update:

See article in Winterthur Portfolio for the latest published iteration of the research described below:  “From the Collection: ‘The Blood of Murdered Time’: Ann Warder’sBerlin Work Collection at Winterthur, 1840-1865,” Winterthur Portfolio 45, 4 (Winter2011): 321-352.

  See also blog entry on fancy work:  Fancy This

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I have had the pleasure of presenting my M.A. thesis ("'The Blood of Murdered Time': Berlin Wool Work in America, 1840-1865") research to a variety of audiences over the past year and a half, and each experience has complicated the way I think about the subject at hand: Berlin work. From collectors to historians of health to Quaker historians, each audience enriches my understanding of a topic and a world of objects (needlework) I knew next to nothing about when I started the research in the spring of 2008 as a student in the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture.

Most recently, I talked about my research as part of a seminar called "Fashion and Fiber: Reimagining the Sources and Use of Textiles" offered at the University of Delaware this semester. The audience was composed primarily of undergraduates studying fashion in addition to others who are pursuing a minor in material culture. There were also a few community members in the audience, not to mention a few supportive colleagues. No matter how much I prepare for such a presentation, I always fear that perhaps my angle will miss the mark. Luckily, it seems that opening with a discussion of a November 2008 Elle fashion spread generated enough interest to sustain a great post-presentation conversation.

The fashion spread reads: "The Season's Homespun Needlepoints and Crochets Offer Equal Parts Kitsch and Comfort."¹ The spread pictures an array of clothing and accessories that were made using a form of needlework (such as knitting, crocheting, or needlepoint) or clothing and accessories that are adorned with motifs that evoke needlework. Technical points aside (needlework cannot be "homespun" since, by definition, it is not woven in the first place), Elle invites readers to buy, wear, and gift something that looks to be homemade. Simultaneously, the spread denigrates needlework by calling it "kitsch." No matter how "couture" needlework has become, it cannot escape its critics. This discourse reflects ongoing debate over needlework and its meaning.

The presentation outlined how I came to study Berlin work; the depth of the collection that served as my case study; the nature of Berlin work; the history of Berlin work criticism; and what this case study tells us about Berlin work that was not known previously. Finally, the point of including the Elle fashion spread was to think about how Berlin work fits into contemporary notions of craft and fashion.

The thesis was inspired by a collection of Berlin work patterns and Berlin work fragments made, altered, and owned by Ann Warder (1824-1866) of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.² The collection also includes Warder's knitting receipt (or instruction) book, her 1832 marking sampler, an eighteenth-century family needlework book cover, a circa 1820 family needlebook, and a circa 1800 family chatelaine. (See this brief article I wrote for the Decorative Arts Trust when I was only beginning my thesis research. It's great for images of the collection and Ann Warder.) Using this collection, which is part of the Winterthur Museum's collection of textiles and needlework, Warder's extant papers (mostly at Haverford College Library), and nineteenth-century Berlin work print culture, I examined how one woman's execution of Berlin work helped us understand Berlin work materials and how they related to other nineteenth-century needlework materials; how Berlin work served as a past time and a way to develop and maintain familial relationships; and how these materials, function, and meaning show continuity as well as discontinuity with previous needlework practices.

Here are some highlights:

Berlin work is a type of wool on canvas or perforated cardboard fancy pictorial needlework that was most popular in the United States between 1840 and 1880. The wool tends to be 4 ply, S twist, Z spun woolen zephyr merino yarn, although there were variations I document in my thesis.


This detail of a Berlin work mat should give you a good idea as to what Berlin work yarns look like up close. I purchased the mid nineteenth-century Berlin work mat for a few dollars at a tag sale a few months ago.

Berlin work designs were published as patterns that were sold in portfolio form or in popular women's magazines. The earlier, European-made patterns tended to be engraved and hand-colored. The later American patterns tended to be lithographed and printed in magazines. I purchased this booklet of small Berlin work patterns at an ephemera sale last spring for $30. It probably dates to the 1850s or so. Small patterns like these were used in conjunction with other motifs on samplers, and they were also added to embellish other projects.


Like needlework that preceded it, Berlin work was made for pleasure, profit, education, and kinship-building; Berlin work was made into objects ranging from samplers to seat covers to book covers to portraits.


This pair of Berlin work slippers was made between 1830 and 1850 in England. Given by Messrs. Harrods, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, T.587 to A-1913.
To my delight, one of the first objects upon which I laid my eyes at the same ephemera show where I purchased the pattern booklet picture above was this book cover. Having completed a research project on needlework book covers (mostly eighteenth-century, although a few nineteenth-century covers made using Berlin wool) while I was studying at Winterthur, I was thrilled to see a Berlin work on perforated cardboard example. This particular cover may have covered a personal keepsake album, but I suspect that is was made to cover a nineteenth-century gift book published under the title Tokens of Remembrance.


Like needlework that came before it, Berlin work was criticized. This criticism is important to understanding the needlework today because it suggests some reasons as to why Berlin work was maligned for so long. These criticisms ranged from issues with aesthetics to objections to the way women used their time. Berlin needleworkers were aware of such objections. Warder herself copied an oft-cited poem bemoaning Berlin work in one of her copybooks in 1842:³

The Husband's Complaint

I hate the name of German wool in all its colors bright,
Of chairs and stools in fancy work, I hate the very sight
The shawls and slippers, that I’ve seen, the ottomans & bags,
Sooner than wear a stitch on me I’d walk the streets in rags.

I’ve heard of wives too musical, too talkative, and quiet,
Of scolding or of gaming wives, and those too fond of riot:
But yet of all the errors known, which to the woman fall,
Forever doing fancy work, I think exceeds them all...

The speaker's wife answers with her own poem, "The Exculpation (In answer to the husband’s Complaint in the matter of His Wife’s Worsted work":

Well to be sure-I never did-why, what a fuss you make
I’ll just explain myself, my dear, a little, for your sake
You seem to think this worsted work is all the ladies do.
A very great mistake of yours-so I’ll enlighten you.

I need’nt count, for luckily I’m filling in just now
So listen, dear, and drive away those furrows from your brow
When you are in your study, dear, as still as any mouse,
You cannot think the lots of things I do about the house...

Authors of needlework handbooks were well aware of such attitudes. They highlighted how practicing Berlin work emulated the upper classes' needlework pursuits. Despite these efforts, many of these aesthetic criticisms evolved into a more cohesive revolt (the aesthetic movement/design reform movement) against a perceived industrialized samenesss and aesthetic messiness. Elite design movements aside, many criticisms were based on long-held misunderstandings about Berlin work, such as the idea that it was made using synthetic dyes (not true), that it did not reflect creativity (similar arguments could be made about eighteenth-century needlework), and that it was a waste of time.

I do not have time to into great depth here about each of these issues (hopefully they will be part of a future publication), but I can tell you that Ann Warder and her use of Berlin work shows that it was not a waste of time or a material production unworthy of close analysis (either historically or today).

Eighteenth-century needlework, which tends to be more highly valued that nineteenth-century Berlin work was often made using some of the same methods used by Berlin workers. Unfortunately, it seems that, thanks to the long-standing dislike for the needlework, few have given it serious scholarly attention. Berlin work does not command anything near what eighteenth-century needlework commands in the market place. On a recent trip to an antiques show, while I analyzed a late Berlin work sampler marked 1875, the merchant noted, "clearly she didn't have a lot of skill." And I didn't have $180 to spend on this unskilled piece of needlework, although an eighteenth century example of needlework the same size would have commanded several hundred dollars at the same venue.

Warder's story shows that, like several historians, curators, and other scholars of women's history and needlework have noted, in the eighteenth through the nineteenth century, needlework served as a way to develop and maintain familial and friendly relations.⁴ In addition, when it was taught in a school setting, needlework and other "ornamental" arts were seen as complements to the standard "arts and sciences" education.⁵ Several Berlin work collections associated with the women's academies and seminaries are extant. Whether Warder attended a school is unclear, but the patterns themselves and Warder's letters and account book show that Ann Warder, like her predecessors, lent her patterns to friends an family and that she bestowed hand-wrought needlework gifts throughout her lifetime. Warder was ill for most of her life, ultimately dying of an "ulceration of the stomach" in 1866.⁶ For Warder, making and exchanging needlework provided her life with cohesion and meaning. The album pictured below is a good example of an English counterpart.


Sarah Bland, a "gentlewoman," made this album in 1866 in England. According to the V&A, "the gift of designs demonstrates connections between relatives of merchant and banking families and is of historical significance in bonding between such families." The album contains Berlin work pattern published by well-known German pattern producers such as A. Todt. Given by Mrs D. McGregor, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, E.372:162-1967.
How does Berlin work--and Warder's story in particular--inform the way we think about needlework, craft, kitsch, fashion, and women's history? Considering the Elle fashion spread and the history of Berlin work's discourse of criticism, the seminar attendees had some fantastic ideas about what has changed (and what hasn't changed) regarding needlework and craft. Despite the fact that many still consider Berlin work in the same negative light as "kitsch," it continues to be fashionable. The Elle spread suggests that its audience deems "craft" fashionable to wear and also, if you have the skill and the time, fashionable to make. Second, another seminarian pointed out continuities in needlework as a group or communal activity. Similar to the way that eighteenth- and nineteenth-century needlework brought women together, so, too, does needlework today. I bet that you or someone you know participates or has participated in a knitting or other needlework group of some kind. If not, needlework's pervasiveness is inescapable one you start looking for it. My boyfriend noted that most of the tag sales we've patronized over the past few months have included hordes of needlework supplies. Here is another example of mid nineteenth-century Berlin work I picked-up at a tag sale for a few dollars.

Berlin work and Berlin work patterns can be found at museums throughout the United States, Berlin work is sold at auction and in retail settings, and Berlin work is collected. This pervasive remnant of the past continues to be important today, whether it is in the world of fashion, the world of "crafts," or the museum world and antiques market. Its pervasiveness alone suggests its historic importance and its continued importance to those have executed it. Berlin work is a poster child for the importance of studying material culture for the sake of understanding it rather that the sake of its beauty. There is no need to be a snob about this, folks--Berlin work is history too. It also looks great on tabletops and walls when used for decorative purposes.

After the discussion with the University of Delaware "Fashion and Fiber" seminar, I am looking forward to exploring Berlin work's relation to "craft" and "kitsch" in more depth. My next presentation will be at the University of Alberta Material Culture Institute's "Material Culture, Craft & Community: Negotiating Objects Across Time & Place" conference in May. Click here to view the program.

In the meantime, please let me know if you have more questions about Berlin work, as I have only scratched the surface here. Also, if you have any images of Berlin work you would like to share, please send them my way! nbelolan at gmail dot com

UPDATE
4 January 2011

Here is an example of a lithographed pattern published in a popular nineteenth-century women's magazine. Patterns such as these were typically included at the beginning of the issue. Some (but not all) were accompanied by a usage note at the rear of the issue. As the 1850s and 60s progressed, more and more patterns (such as this one) featured broader color palettes. Editors boasted about these patterns, noting that readers would spend more on a pattern from a fancy store than on an entire issue of the magazine.⁷ Needleworkers could have used this pattern in a number of capacities. Needleworkers may have stitched the design onto canvas and framed it. Alternatively, they may have worked the pattern and used it as upholstery or as a piece of a quilt.

I purchased this pattern at an antique mall in northern Michigan last week for $5. I have seen earlier hand-colored examples of about the same dimensions in somewhat better condition for about $25 to $30. I think $5 was a good price for this pattern, although I am concerned about the Scotch tape that is holding the pattern together where it was folded.



Further Reading

Click here to reference my thesis bibliography.

Notes

1. “She’s Crafty: The Season’s Homespun Needlepoints and Crochets
Offer Equal Parts Kitsch and Comfort,” Elle Fashion Trends, Elle, November
2008, 154.

2. The Warder Berlin Work collection is at the Winterthur Museum, in Winterthur, DE, 2004.0071.001-.148.

3. “The Husband’s Complaint,” Copied by Ann Warder, 5 August 1842, and “The Exculpation (In answer to the husband’s Complaint in the matter of His Wife’s Worsted work,” Copied by Ann Warder, 5 August 1842, in Poetry Notebook, ca. 1841-1844, 12-14, Box 105, J-CFP.

4. Catherine E. Kelly, In the New England Fashion: Reshaping Women’s Lives in the Nineteenth Century (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999), 55; Amanda Vickery, Behind Closed Doors: At Home in Georgian England (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 245-246.

5. Mary Kelley, Learning to Stand and Speak: Women, Education, and Public Life in America's Republic (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006), 76-81.

6. Ann Warder, Death Certificate, Vol. 1, 1866, no. 105, Philadelphia City Archives, Philadelphia, PA.

7. Warder Collection, 2004.71.122, “Pattern for Chair Seat,” Peterson’s Magazine, January 1863, 85 and Warder Collection, 2004.71.108, and “Berlin Work Pattern./For Sofa Pillow, Footstool, Bag, Ottoman, or Fender-stool,” Peterson’s Magazine, December 1860, 484.